Garima & Mahima: The two famous names in the world of clones

Hello everyone. My name is Pranav Vashisht and I’m a graduate student of Food Science. Today I’m going to tell you about the cloned buffalo Garima and her daughter Mahima.

India has a huge population of buffalo (around 56% of the world’s buffalo population) but still, the country is facing problems because most of these buffaloes are low milk producer and of inferior quality.

So to overcome these difficulties scientists of National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal have developed the cloning technique named as “Handguided Cloning Technique” which is an advanced version of the conventional cloning technique which requires high investment and sophisticated equipments. They produced the first and second cloned buffalo calves of this world with the help of this technique.

The first buffalo calf produced was born on 6^th February, 2009 which died within 07 days after its birth. But scientists didn’t give up and on 6^th June 2009 they produced the second cloned calf “Garima”. This calf was healthier with the birth weight of 43 kg and was taken care of properly. The calf was reported to be grown at the rate of over 800 g per day which was higher than the normal calf’s growth rate which is around 500 g and had 202 kg of body weight within 06 months of age.

But the story doesn’t end here. This cloned buffalo was once again in the news because it gave birth to another female calf on 25th January, 2013. Scientists named her as “Mahima”. Mahima was delivered by normal parturition. It was reported to be healthy and of 32 kg body weight when born.

Researchers say that this is only starting and “Handguided Cloning” has a long way to go but it is a good technique to meet the demand for milk production of the growing population.